Sunday’s lectionary lesson for the Gospel is a little “blah” as a preaching text. I’ve heard healing and miracle stories allegorized, turned into prosperity Gospel texts and used for every kind of questionable lesson on faith. I think we can do better.

I have some individual ideas, but none of them are really revving my preaching motor this week. So you take a swing of the bat.

What can we do with Mark 10:46-52 as a text for preaching the Gospel? Ideas. Illustrations. Applications. Themes. I’m open for suggestions.

These messages won’t be sent to the iTunes feed any more. You’ll have to pick them up here on the post.

Listen here to: “What’s Wrong With Ambition?” Mark 10:35-52

“He expects us to make mistakes. He gives us millions (indeed billions and trillions) of chances. If anything, God likes our weaknesses because it enables him to exercise his infinite mercy. When Paul prayed earnestly to be delivered from a particularly annoying weakness, God said to him, ‘My grace is enough for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Corinthians 12:9) According to this text, we do God a great favor by accepting our weakness. So there is no reason to be saddened by the fact that we do not measure up to our idealized image of ourselves and of how we should perform in the spiritual journey. That obviously is an ego trip.” (p. 104, Manifesting God by Thomas Keating) Thanks Lurker Joanie

“Lord, I thank you that I am not like other men.”

Of course, we are like other human beings. The Pharisee’s prayer was an exercise in self-deception. Informing God that we aren’t like other people is a particularly pointless endeavor, though it made enormous sense to the Pharisee, whose entire religion was based on separation from others.

“I’m right and you’re wrong.” How far should we go down that road? It does take us somewhere, but where does it ultimately take us? If you get out the map, it eventually takes all of us to the place where we’re all wrong, in one way or another.

“I don’t do the bad things that some men do.” But if you keep traveling, sooner or later the scenery starts to look familiar. We all arrive at the town where WE do bad things.

“I’m more religious than other people.” That’s a short road, because religion is a short road to nowhere. No one is religious enough, and the more religious we are, the less we have of what God is really looking for.

In a post from another time, I called it “the Ecclesiastes attitude.” Eventually, the same things catch up with the whole human race and we all turn into the same kind of monster. Life is one big rerun, with a few different whistles and bells.

Do we have a sense that Ecclesiastes is telling us the truth when it says that all our efforts to outdistance ourselves from the unwashed masses and the common sinners, while impressive today, are page 9, section F tomorrow?

Do we get it that the awards we give ourselves for avoiding the errors and failures of other people tarnish very, very quickly?

Do we realize that in the gaze of God, all our thrashing around, outrage at unrighteousness and extended speeches correcting the errors of our neighbors end up being the very evidence that convicts us of being unrighteous, unloving and condemned by God’s holiness?

The problem with being a religious leader, or a husband, or a dad, or a preacher/writer, is that eventually EVERY SINGLE WORD you’ve spoken to your wife, your kids and your various congregations will revisit you and condemn you.

All of it. Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t speak or teach or correct, but which does mean there’s no separating ourselves so far away from or above others that we become spectators on their condemnation and repentance.

When we have a bad man in our sights- like, for instance, most conservatives and their view of the President- we are at particular risk. His flaws loom large and fill the screen. Our condemnations and criticisms fill ears, eyes and pages.

It never seems to occur to us that while the political stances may be different, the human failure is the same. Eventually, we all will be sitting by Obama in the same bus station, going to the same destination.

So Jesus’ story reminds me that the difference between the tax collector begging for mercy and the Pharisee reading all the reasons he was right amounted to a matter of self-perception, not God perception.

And from God’s point of view, what mattered was sola fide. And that was all. Dressed in the righteousness of Christ alone, I have no place to stand and point at how poorly dressed someone else happens to be.

Note: Adrian Warnock preaches the Gospel. He also made a great picture

In a few days, I’ll gather my chapel preachers together for our orientation to the preaching work of the year. As I do every year, I’ll tell them to preach the Gospel. I’ll hand out “Two Ways To Live” and talk about the difference between preaching morality and preaching the Good News of Jesus.

Most of these men know and understand my burden that our students, many of whom we will only have for a year, get a clear and Biblical presentation of the Gospel throughout the year. They may consider me a bit of a “Johnny One Note,” but they want our kids to hear the Gospel as well. All of us, however, will use some of our preaching time to emphasize other messages in the Bible: moral lessons, character qualities, lessons to apply while a student, relationship wisdom, etc.

As important as it is to preach the Gospel, the fact is that there is more than the Gospel in the scriptures. When we are in the business of teaching the scriptures, we need to know how to preach the Gospel, and how to preach it from anywhere in the scriptures. But we also need to know how to preach what is NOT the Gospel, but is still of value.

1. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that doesn’t obscure the Gospel. My greatest concern is that my preachers understand that if they preach the story of Samson, they must preach the Gospel of Jesus and not the Gospel of making good decisions. The relationship between the Gospel and the law is basic here. Those good things in all of those stories are easy to preach and easy to apply, but in the scheme of the Gospel, they can benefit our lives temporally, but they cannot save. No amount of principles or lessons will deliver us from our inability to keep the law.

It’s important to let the law be true and helpful without letting it begin to sound like the “Good News” of obedience. It’s essential for a preacher or teacher know how to move from law to Gospel without contradiction or confusion.

2. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that points to Jesus. David, Moses and Samson have lessons for us. But where they fall short, Jesus perfectly fulfills all they tried to be. The lessons in Biblical stories are seen in their characters, but they are seen in the Gospel only in Jesus. One greater than David or Moses or Abraham is here.

This means we need to develop a skill that preachers of another era prized and practiced: connecting Biblical characters and stories to Christ. I can offer no one better than the Puritans or Spurgeon. Read Thomas Watson, for example, and watch how his mind is always moving through whatever part of the Bible he is using toward Jesus. How can these characters illuminate Jesus and the Gospel?

3. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that recognizes the power of the Gospel. There is power in lessons and examples: namely, my power to follow them. That means, of course, a very imperfect and inconsistent power. There is power in the Gospel: the power that saves, that raises the dead, that remakes the world. God’s power. The power of the Holy Spirit.

How do I get my students to appreciate that only God can save them, change them, raise them and finish all the work that he started? One way is by not leading them to believe that wisdom, proverbs, lessons, principles and other things of value can bring the power of God in the same way.

4. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that shows the difference between human effort and faith. Faith is resting upon God’s promise. It is receiving the gift of God. Faith is placing hope in God himself and what he alone has done and will do. In following any lesson in scripture, we are urging obedience, often on the premise of the necessity of faith. But with the Gospel, if we are Protestants, we are urging faith alone in Christ and his grace alone.

The preacher wants to fuel and fire up faith, but faith rests and believes at a level much deeper and fundamental than it imitates, works or obeys. Our preaching should never discourage obedience, but the lasting quality we want to build up is faith first, and everything else later.

We also must be sure not to confuse faith and works, faith and obedience, faith and repentance or faith and intention. While there is a proper emphasis on practice as a path of faith, the Bible goes to great lengths to declare the nature of faith distinctively, even as it recognizes that faith always exists, in an imperfect relationship to, obedience, repentance and so forth.

5. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that does not distort or neglect the proper role of what is not the Gospel. There is a proper place for all of the Bible that is not, in itself, the Gospel. We don’t want to lose the characters, the lessons (which the New Testament says are there to help us), the law or anything else in a constant emphasis on Jesus and the Gospel. We want the scriptures to honestly be what they are and say what they say. I am surprised how some preachers will defend the distortion of a text if they are bending it toward Jesus in some way. We must be good workmen with the text and allow the text to say what it says and be what it is. Properly understood, it will testify to Christ and the Gospel without efforts on our part that damage the plain meaning of the scripture.

One last note: The emphasis on expository, verse by verse preaching raises many of these same concerns. If we stake out a book that is mostly law, we must know how to keep the Gospel primary and not spend 6 months in the law without reference to the only one who keeps the law, the only one who fulfills the law and the only one who forgives the law.

“I live by preaching. My tongue is a devoted thing.” – John Wesley

For 17 years, it’s been my vocation to preach the Gospel to hundreds of teenagers who come to our ministry, most of whom, for much of the time I preach to them, do not believe it. I am not a professional evangelist, but evangelistic teaching and preaching is the majority of my ministry focus.

When I came to this work almost two decades ago, I came from twenty years of working on church staff; 16 as a youth minister and 4 as a pastor. In all of those years, I had very limited contact with unbelievers aside from a few unconverted church kids. That contact was on my “turf.” But in my first few weeks at my current ministry, I was overwhelmed with hundreds of unbelievers.

It was a jolting adjustment, to say the least. Almost everything in my ministry mindset and toolbox was calibrated for the believing children of church families. Unbelievers were, to be honest, the people I was supposed to teach my young people to stay away from, a la Landover Baptist’s “Ten Mile” rule. I was a servant of a “church shaped” spirituality: create a busy youth program and keep the students involved as much as possible. With lots of church based activities and experiences, it was far less likely those students would take up with criminals, get pregnant or use drugs.

Calling those church kids to discipleship was rhetorically acceptable, but had I undertaken a mission to get a significant number of my students to commit to missions in Afghanistan, it would have been an entirely different matter. So I did what thousands of youth ministers do: I reduced the Christian life to church involvement and lots of discipleship talk that amounted to “don’t be like the other kids.” I sprinkled “commitment to Jesus” in there, but I really had no idea what ministry outside of the church meant. And God’s global purpose? It was out there, beckoning me to begin discipling students toward missions and vocations surrendered to following Christ. I simply avoided it.

I am so grateful for what God has done in my life these past 17 years. As I listened to Dr. John Piper teach the material in “Let The Nations Be Glad” this weekend (See the sessions here), I realized I’d come a long way. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve become a different kind of preacher and Christian.

1. Evangelism is my preaching priority. I want to Christians to overhear the Gospel, but I want unbelievers to hear the Gospel.

2. I’m grateful for a deeper presentation of the Gospel available for evangelism training with materials like “Two Ways To Live.”

3. I’m grateful for a community of believers whose priority is evangelizing students. They support me in prayer, but they provide an environment where students are loved, forgiven and actively engaged in finding a meaningful calling in the world. What a gift!

4. I’m grateful for the questions unbelievers ask in our context. Some of them are a bit tedious, but everyone has to move past certain basic issues to get to the heart of the Gospel. Many times, I will realize that students aren’t really getting the scandal of the Gospel until the end of the year. It takes many months to move past the idea that Christianity is for and about good people rather than about our amazing crucified and risen King, Jesus.

5. I’m grateful for the network of churches and friends around the country who support our work. These are people who enable me to do evangelism, apologetics and Bible teaching with hundreds and hundreds of students who don’t know Christ. By providing an education, a home, job training, ESL and other valued ministries, the lost come to us. Making this possible are hundreds of churches and thousands of Christians who can’t do what we do alone, but can do it through us.

6. I’m grateful for Christian students and their witness to the their unbelieving friends.

7. I’m thankful for my direct co-workers: 9 other preachers, two worship bands, counselors, technicians, small group leaders, prayer ministers, assistants in campus ministry and people who do things large and small to make ministry happen.

8. I’m thankful to God for sending hundreds of unbelievers to us, many from the nations of the earth. I’m grateful for those that have need saved and those who will be.

9. How can I thank the Lord for bringing me to the place in my life where I can be of some use to him? There aren’t enough worship songs to say it.

Sometimes I get a bit weary and think that I’d like to be back on church staff teaching and training other ministry leaders. God may have that in my future. I don’t know. But until then, I want to be in a ministry that is filled with lost students. Even though I will occasionally have experiences like I did Sunday night, when opposition is visible and audible, the challenge is transforming.

Ministering in this context takes me to Jesus for molding, teaching, inspiration and example every day. Each new intake of students presents fresh challenges for how to live out the love of Christ. As I began a new term of summer school today, the lost are in front of me for 6 hours a day. God is at work, and I am privileged, as Dr. Piper said, to “hammer the nail,” i.e. preach the Gospel. No matter what we believe about God’s sovereignty, if the hammer doesn’t hit the nail (the communicator doesn’t communicate) no nail (Gospel) will go into the wood.

Only God can bring the Gospel into the minds and lives of my students, and only in his power and his timing. But for the next 6 weeks and beyond, I am one of God’s hammers.

Isaac Watts said it best:

Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb,
And shall I fear to own His cause,
Or blush to speak His Name?

Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?
Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace,
To help me on to God?

Sure I must fight if I would reign;
Increase my courage, Lord.
I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,
Supported by Thy Word.

Thy saints in all this glorious war
Shall conquer, though they die;
They see the triumph from afar,
By faith’s discerning eye.

When that illustrious day shall rise,
And all Thy armies shine
In robes of victory through the skies,
The glory shall be Thine.

I have received a lot of interest and feedback on my last two posts on InternetMonk, concerning how and when people switch between their childhood religion and their current faith. For those who have not had the opportunity to read them, you can read them here and here.

The question that I have been asked the most is about historical trends in the data. For example, from the graph that I provided you can see that about 50% of adults who were raised non-religious, subsequently joined a faith group. How has this changed over time? (For the purposes of this posting I am using the word “religious” in the way it has been used historically, that is, someone is religious if they are an adherent to a particular faith tradition.)

Bradley Wright, who teaches Sociology of Religion at the University of Connecticut, was kind enough to pass on a source of data where this was analyzed:

Fischer and Hout, in their recent book “Century of Difference” (2006) used General Social Survey data to analyze historical data about religion and childhood. For the most part, the graphs that they provide match up quite nicely with the chart that I provided. Historically, the outflows from Evangelical and Mainline Protestant church have been pretty constant over the last 100 years. Evangelicals have done a better job at retaining member than Mainline Protestants, and so over time have fared better. Typically about 75% of Evangelical 16 year olds will continue their Evangelical affiliation into adulthood. 25% will switch out, a number that is quite similar to what is seen in my chart. Catholics retention is not as strong as it used to be, but according to the Fischer and Hout data is now similar to that of Evangelicals.

The most striking change was for the non-religious. If you were raised non-religious between 1920 and about 1950 then you were more than 70% likely to join a faith group after the age of 16. This started changing rapidly in the 1960s, and by the time Fischer and Hout collected their data and published their book in 2002, the rate that at which non-religious became religious was down to 25%.

My chart, by nature of it looking at all adults regardless of age, had an averaging effect of younger adults and older adults, so my percentage of outflows from the non-religious was quite a bit higher than the 25% currently being reported by Fischer and Hout. What this means that if we were to somehow update my chart, and look at flows that were happening today, Protestant and Catholic outflows would be very similar to what you see on the chart, but outflows from the non-religious would only be about half as wide as are drawn on the chart.

These numbers should not surprise us. As my wife said to me last night, there is so much more support for the non-religious in school, media, and society in general than there was 50 years ago. It is not surprising that they are now retaining 75% of their adherents. I should also point out the trend in the non-religious retaining their adherents has not slowed. It may already be significantly higher than the 75%.

I hate being a bearer of bad news. I really do. People who know me, know that I am a pretty optimistic kind of guy. I don’t like to see that the non-religious are gaining ground. I have a lot of neighbors and co-workers who are not religious. Most of them do not see any need whatsoever for religion, or faith, or whatever you might want to call it. This is certainly a wake up call that tells me how important it is for me to live a Christ like life, to at least show them, if not tell them, that Jesus Christ is something worth considering.

As usual your thoughts and comments are welcome.

In my previous post at Internet Monk, I looked at two surveys conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. that was released a few weeks ago, and which was a followup to their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that they released last year.

By working with the numbers of the surveys I was able to come up with a chart that showed how Americans have been changing from their childhood faith to their current faith. One of the key findings was that Christian denominations are losing adherents though the back door so to speak than they are gaining new believers through the front door. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, please check out the original post, as it will help you understand some of the ideas behind this post, as well us understand the magnitude of the changes.

Today I wanted to focus on the “when” and the “why” this hemorrhaging was occurring, but as I have been pondering the data, the “when” seemed to really stand out as being important. I was reminded of my preaching classes back in seminary, when our professor, Dr. Peter Ralph, would constantly remind us to find the “big idea” that needed to be communicated from the biblical text. I think the same holds true when looking at survey data. Here is the “big idea” that jumped out at me when going through the Flux survey data and reports:

Most religious life decisions, even among those who have been open to change, has been set by age 23.

Of those who were raised Protestant (Evangelical, Mainline, and Historical Black), and are now “unaffiliated with any religious group”, 85% left their childhood faith before the age of 24. Of those who were raised Catholic and were now unaffiliated, 79% left before the age of 24. The same holds true for those coming back the other way. Of those raised unaffiliated, but who are now affiliated with a religious group, 72% left the ranks of the unaffiliated before the age of 24.

I can’t emphasize enough how huge this is. I will state this again: Most religious life decisions, even among those who have been open to change, has been set by age 23. There is another much smaller group that will leave their Christian faith group between the ages of 24 and 35, but only 3-4% who will make the change after they turn 36.

Before I look at the implications of this, I would like us to consider some related statistics that also come from the Flux survey. Of those who were raised Protestant but are now unaffiliated, 64% attended weekly worship as a child, but only 29% attended as a teen. This too is huge. When we relate this back to our first set of numbers we can see that of those who left the faith before age 24, a large percentage had already made that decision by their teenage years. For Catholics, the decision to leave is somewhat delayed. Of those from Catholic backgrounds who become unaffiliated, 44% are still attending regularly as teens (down from 74% as children). As noted earlier, before the age of 24, most of those who will leave have already left, whether they be Catholic or Protestant.

So what does all this mean for us?

These numbers have significant implications for both discipleship and evangelism. While I have focused primarily on those leaving, it works both way. Those coming to faith make the decision when they are young as well. Let us look at the discipleship aspect first.

A friend of mine, Mitch, became a Youth Pastor of an Evangelical Presbyterian church a number of years ago. While the Church was of quite a decent size (about 300 attendance), they had no youth group, and almost no youth attending. I believe Mitch was hired as the church’s first ever Youth Pastor because the church knew that they had potentially lost one complement of youth, and were afraid of losing those who were approaching that age as well. As hard as Mitch tried, he could not get those youth who had left to come back, even though their parents will still attending the church. So instead he focused his energies on the kids in Sunday School and Junior High. By building into those kids lives, they had gone through significant discipleship well before they hit high school, and Mitch had the joy of working with them all the way through high school. Even after Mitch moved on to another church in a distant community as a senior pastor, he was invited back to participate in their weddings. It was wonderful to see those teens move into adulthood, still actively engaged in the church.

My point is that if we are not serious and intentional about engaging our young people before they hit their teens, then we may have left it too late.

After the teenage years comes young adulthood, and College and/or University have often been fingered as being culprits in the move away from the faith in young adults. Steven James Henderson in his 2003 study entitled “The Impact of Student Religion and College Affiliation on Student Religiosity” writes:

Railsbackís 1994 study of “born-again” Christian students… found that the vast majority of Christian students attend non-Christian colleges. As previously mentioned, of the group that attended public universities, approximately 52% either no longer called themselves “born again” or had not attended any religious services or meetings in over a year by the end of their college experience.

However it has been shown that those who do not attend College fall away from the faith in ever greater percentages than those who do attend. Regnerus and Uecker write:

The assumption that the religious involvement of young people diminishes when they attend college is of course true: 64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution have curbed their attendance habits. Yet, 76 percent of those who never enrolled in college report a decline in religious service attendance.

So what do we do?

In Henderson’s more readable summary article, he points out that:

Students who attend institutions that are members of the Council for Christian College and Universities (CCCU) showed significant positive differences on almost all individual measures of religious commitment as well as an overall increase in that commitment compared to those who attended non-member institutions.

These numbers may be misleading because if I want to become and Engineer, I am going to go to a school that specializing in producing Engineers. If I want to become a Pastor, I am going to go to a school that specializes in producing Pastors. So it may be that those who enter CCCU schools are more intentional about their future Christian involvement, and as such score much higher in the surveys.

Even if the numbers are not misleading, this still gives me a bit of a problem, primarily I believe that Christians cocoon themselves far too much, and secondly, because as pointed out by George Wood, a leader in the Assemblies of God, only 15% of their students choose schools affiliated with the CCCU. His figures, based on the 2005 Church Ministries Report for the Assemblies of God show that there are:

315,000 young people between the ages of 13 and 17 in the 12,301 Assemblies of God churches in the U.S.

210,000 (two-thirds) will enter one of the 4,000 colleges or universities in America.

178,500 will enter a non-Christian college or university, while

31,500 (15 percent) will enter one of the 102 CCCU schools, including those affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

In nine years, after these 13- to 17-year-olds have been in college for four years (and if the same percentages hold true for those who don’t go to college) up to 189,000 of Assemblies of God youth ñ out of 315,000 ñ may no longer be following Christ.

So, while giving additional consideration to a Christian College may be of benefit to our students, we need to consider the large majority who are not going to go that route.

This is why I am such a large supporter of Christian Campus ministries like Navigators, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and what was formerly known as Campus Crusade. Church “College & Career” ministries are very important too. My wife and I were involved in three different Campus ministries while at University, and one significant Church College ministries. All four had a huge impact on our spiritual growth, as well as in establishing life long relationships with like minded Christians. I look at those I was involved with and so many of them went on to become Pastors, Missionaries, and leaders in their respective churches. It is for that reason that my wife and I give 25% of our tithe to Campus ministries, spreading it out over four campuses. Being able to contribute to the spiritual well being of University students is something I believe will have a lasting impact on both their lives and the future health of the church.

Henderson has a number of excellent suggestions for students, parents, and Pastors, for ways that students can remain strong in their faith during their college years. It is well worth reading.

I would like to add a couple of other thoughts to his list as well as tie back to some of my original comments about teens.

I realize that I am about to pick on Pastors here, but I see Pastors as the key implementer of change within churches. Pastors, how intentional are you at engaging youth and young adults in your sermons? Go over your last 10 sermons. How many of the sermon illustrations were ones that young people could really relate too? Have you ever alluded to a group like “Cold Play”? Do you have a visitation schedule? If so, have you ever included a teen or a young adult in that schedule? Have you ever taken a teen in your church out for a baseball game or even a cheese burger? When was the last time someone under the age of 18 did a Bible reading in the service? Ushered? Ran the sound board, or video system? Joined the worship team? Let a Bible Study? My son who is 14, does all kinds of complex presentations at school on all kinds of subjects that he has researched. Why doesn’t he get the same kind of opportunity at church?

My point is that many of our people have become disengaged from their faith at a very young age. It isn’t enough to tread water, but we need to become intentional at engaging them. You should note that I am not advocating that we become youth focused in our churches, but that we should at least become much more youth aware and youth inclusive. We need to engage them beyond the time spent in their Sunday School class or youth group, and make sure that they are an integral part in this bigger thing we call “church.”

My final note has to do with evangelism. As noted earlier in the post, of those raised unaffiliated, but who are now affiliated with a religious group, 72% left the ranks of the unaffiliated before the age of 24. My friend Tim immediately came to mind when I read this. When I was at University, he amazed all of us in our Christian campus group by leading his entire residence floor to Christ. One of the guys who became a Christian went on to become the President of our group three years later. Yet this is something that should not surprise us, because this is a stage of life when people are seeking, learning, and discovering so many new and amazing things about the world around them. We need to take the opportunity to introduce them to the most amazing person of all: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

I am aware that, according to a full understanding of church discipline, it is compassionate to deal with someone in a way that their need for repentance and returning to faith in Christ becomes obvious in their life. What concerns me is that the paradigm for church discipline is assumed to be radical surgery rather than the promotion of health in as much of the body as possible.

There are Christians who need church leadership to step up and take church discipline seriously, but not by attempting to turn an issue into a “bring it before the church,” I Corinthians 5 kind of response. These are persons who need church leaders to show an interest as shepherds, offering oversight, accountability, resources or mentoring, as needed, in situations that might normally be ignored.

In other words, where there is genuine sinful behavior that is affecting a spouse, child, family or fellow church member, the church should act like the church, with gentle and consistent reminders and interventions pointing to the onset of a process that can bring the entire church into a “sin intervention” process.

Many people who are hurting and suffering have a tremendous sense of isolation. They are afraid of embarrassment. Some are intimidated. Others believe they are to blame. In some situations, the church has made it clear that it does not want the responsibility of making judgments in personal conflicts because this may cause tension in the congregation or even among leaders.

But the fact is that the overall dynamics of being the church gives the church a stake in the success of every marriage, the effectiveness of every parent, the health of every relationship within the church and the openness of the doors of leaders to deal with real problems without embarrassment.

When a church waits until only “serious” issues surface, they run a greater risk of not resolving the issue before more traditional discipline becomes likely. The most redemptive, useful church discipline should happen in “Step 1,” with personal confrontation leading to resolution, repentance and healing.

Some of these situations demand a level of wisdom, care and spiritual insight that we do not see at all in the rush for a “church growth” pastor. It is no wonder that so many people leave the church hurt and discouraged when the church is not an ally in these kinds of situations. We find it easier to publish and promote a sermon series on DVD that to ordain and support a pastor who can talk to an irresponsible husband or a son taking advantage of his parents.

Those familiar with the Andy Griffith Show will know why I always think of Sheriff Andy Taylor in this kind of discussion. Sheriff Taylor was a law enforcement officer who was capable of being tough, but he preferred to be a friend, encourager, teacher and surrogate parent to those who found themselves doing the wrong thing. Our leaders need to have the “Sheriff Taylor” attitude: Shepherd the sheep carefully and you’ll have to fire your gun a lot less often.

I also hope that all of you will realize something. For me this issue of church discipline gets into something very personal.

There is a situation in my life, now past and over, that might have been resolved entirely differently if I were part of a Christian community that would practice “Jesus shaped” discipline and shepherding at an early stage.

I don’t have the option of being part of such a community. When I sought help from fellow Christians, I did not find anyone who was willing to venture into my life to help me. Instead, I was blamed for admitting my part in a problem, and eventually the problem was put in the context of “every person doing what they believe is right.” I love my Christian brothers and sisters, but this situation demonstrated to me that we can be profoundly unhelpful to one another in situations where we need the Body of Christ to act like a community instead of an audience.

If I were part of the kind of church my friend Frank Turk has so often written about, I believe I could have asked for help and found help, at an early stage, that would have made a tremendous difference. At the least, the concerns of other Christians would have carried some weight, even if no resolution was possible.

Instead, I had to deal with the issue myself. I dealt with it poorly, and I dealt with it alone. The results are now over and will never change.

Punitive church discipline, of course, could be applied now, and some would rejoice in it. At this point, in my opinion, discipline would be pointless, cruel and unhelpful. But earlier, the right kind of gentle, straightforward intervention could have made a great difference.

It is my fault and my responsibility that I am not in this kind of church or in this kind of situation. Be that as it may, it is easy for me to see the difference a pastoral, practical, early, compassionate application of church discipline could make for those who are facing a problem they cannot respond to effectively alone.

What should we do? A series of questions to close this out?

Does your church see discipline in a broad and helpful way, or in a narrow and punitive way?

Do you understand the many situations where the loving, but straightforward appearance of church discipline can make a difference? (Even if it cannot solve the problem.)

Does pastoral counseling take into account the place of church discipline?

Are leaders accessible? Can concerns of this type be heard “safely” and confidentially?

Are pastors and elders free to come into those levels of our lives, families and experiences where support of the church is needed and helpful?

Do pastors and elders know how to bring church discipline into the picture in the various ways suggested in Matthew 18 and I Corinthians 5?

Is church discipline grounded in grace and the Gospel? Does it build the community of Jesus?

Do we desire our community to know our struggles? Are we willing to be that gentle and helpful friend representing God’s people when needed?

Are we developing spiritual gifts and ministries that can respond to these kinds of situations with compassion and experience? (Both for the offender and the offended)

John 6:60 Many of his disciples said, “This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?”

61 Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again? 63 The Spirit alone egives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But some of you do not believe me.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning which ones didn’t believe, and he knew who would betray him.) 65 Then he said, “That is why I said that people can’t come to me unless the Father gives them to me.”

66 At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. 67 Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” 68 Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

Have you ever come to a place where you wanted to say, “Let me off. I’m done?”

Maybe you were in a car with an 88 year old driver who shouldn’t have been driving anywhere, much less down an interstate.

Maybe you were about to get on an amusement park ride that you really didn’t want to ride.

Maybe you were going back for week two of a job that was not at all what you thought it would be.

You said to yourself- or to anyone else who would listen- “I think it’s time for me to quit.”

After listening to Jesus give what may have been his most intense, challenging and disturbing talk, it seems that some of Jesus’ disciples were ready to quit. “Eat my flesh and drink my blood” was their place to get off the bus.

We tend to think of the people who followed Jesus as an “easy sell.” They were sitting around, doing nothing, just waiting for a prophet or rabbi to show up so they could spend years following him. Like eager customers at a car dealership, they were ready to buy from minute one and never doubted.

I doubt that such a scenario is true. It’s more likely that many days ended with some of the disciples saying “I’ve had enough. I’m going home.” I imagine many late nights around the campfire were punctuated with one disciple talking another out of leaving, or arguments that ended in departures the next morning.

Why? The scriptures suggest to me at least three issues that may have caused some of Jesus’ followers to look for the next exit.

Some were frightened because of what they saw Jesus do. When Jesus calmed the storm, the disciples were terrified. We may think it was wonderful, but if you and I had been there, it’s likely we would have said, “If this is God, I don’t want to be around him.”

Some may have just heard enough of what they couldn’t believe. Jesus didn’t hesitate to put the choice to be a disciple in less than “attractional” language. He seemed to purposely offend with hard words to force a choice. We would be a bit silly to think that every disciple heard Jesus make statements about the decisive choice to suffer, go against family or embrace the cross and easily said “Yes. I choose that way.” Some certainly heard Jesus say “If anyone would come after me….” and said “I’m not coming after you any more.”

I especially think about the traumatic experience of having all your certainties about God, life, the Kingdom, the Messiah, scripture and the future exploded every day. Jesus relentlessly took on the certainties of religion and politics, redefining and reanimating them all with whole new meanings. This couldn’t have been easy. At times it must have sometimes been infuriating and depressing. Some would have said, “I don’t want my whole world turned upside down. I’m quitting.”

As evangelicals, we’re often blind to this segment of the people we relate to and communicate with. We are oriented to think that our witness is to people who are open to be convinced or are moving toward the truth. In fact, Jesus had many people move the other way as the truth about himself himself came clearer.

There are many in evangelicalism who are close to that same place. They are looking for the best time and place to quit. They are moving away from Jesus and away from those who believe in and say they follow Jesus. We often write these people off as “quitters” or we simply don’t admit their existence. But they are there. Sometimes they are a son, daughter or close friend. Sometimes, it’s been some of us.

Why are they thinking that it’s time for them to “get off” the evangelical/Christian journey?

1. They can’t believe in the God we’ve told them about any more.

2. They can’t live the Christian life as it’s been presented to them.

3. They don’t want to be like the Christians they see and many they know.

4. They tried “it” and “it” didn’t work.

5. They’ve thought about it, and something other than Christianity makes more sense for the moment.

Many Christians would immediately present arguments, apologetics and a pile of reasons to these people.

Jesus gives an interesting response.

In John 6:61-62, Jesus says, “If you are offended now, you haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until you get the big picture of who I am.”

His offensive words about flesh and blood would soon be overtaken by the resurrection and the ascension. A puzzling and mysterious Jesus would be replaced by a world overcoming/world transcending Jesus.

Jesus says all our objections are ultimately dwarfed by the truth of who he really is. It’s not that our objections and reasons to quit are irrational. They simply can’t compare to the truth that is so much greater than any of our questions, objections and even rejections.

Peter says, “Yes, it’s difficult sometimes, but where else and to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Where else can we go is a great response. It’s honest and authentic. It doesn’t make Christianity a game of “How many questions can be answered?” No, it’s a matter of WHO Jesus is, and despite the mystery, the challenge, the intimidation and the difficulty, who else comes to us as God on earth, with the words of eternal life?

In the story of the prodigal son, both boys learn that the Father’s love and grace are greater than what stands in the way of understanding him. The Father’s love and grace to the wasteful son overwhelms his sin and his religious plan to get back in the family. The Father’s love and grace is greater than the moralistic, legalistic system of reward that the older son thought guaranteed him his place in the family.

The Father was greater than all that they brought to the table. In the end, they were left not with answers to their questions, but a Father whose love and purpose to save couldn’t and wouldn’t fail.

For all those who are looking for the next place to “get off” the path of following Jesus and/or being a Christian, their is no list of answers. There is only one who overwhelms all questions and answers; one to whom we ultimately say “Even with all my objections and reservations, where else could I go, Jesus, except to you.”

I realize it seems a bit devotional to say that Jesus is the answer to all those reasons to “quit.” I’m not naive. I’m expounding scripture, and that may have already hit the trash bin. I’m giving my own testimony- Jesus is all that keeps me on board these days- and that isn’t everyone’s story. I realize all of this.

But I do think that sometimes it’s not at all the court case we make a spiritual divorce out to be. Sometimes the answer is simply coming to know that there is One who, as love himself, makes all the questions move back a few rows so our faith can have a place to sit.

I pray that many will stay with the journey a while longer, and learn that a Jesus shaped faith contains one whose great grace overturns our hurts and fears.

Nostalgia- a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. -Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Talking with a pastor friend this afternoon, it occurred to me that my own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, finds itself in the perfect storm.

In 1979, conservatives in the SBC announced a plan to wrest control of the denomination from the moderate-liberals who had brought the denomination through the turbulent 1960’s and into a new and optimistic age of Southern Baptist dominance of Baptist evangelicalism. (I’m aware that many SBC leaders on both sides of the fence deny that they are evangelicals. I was taught by the Landmark fundamentalists that we weren’t Protestants. Given the symmetrical chaos, I’ll continue using both terms.)

The conservatives, long a deplored and ridiculed caricature among leadership despite their large numbers, had found a strategy in the SBC’s constitution. The President was elected by the messengers at the convention, and then used that power in one very influential way: he nominated the committee that named trustees to the various agencies and institutions of the denomination.

The plan meant that conservatives had to go to the national convention in large numbers, nominate and elect one of their own for President, for close to fifteen years in a row.

They did it. In two decades, the moderate-liberals were displaced across the board, and eventually left the denomination completely. Seminaries were turned upside down- especially at the moderate-liberal dominated Southeastern and Southern seminaries- and mission boards, agencies and other denominational concerns were controlled by conservatives. It was an unheard of, unprecedented turnaround of an entire denomination.

At this point, one would have been judged insane to predict we would be where we are today as a convention. Conservatives were confident that unity and prosperity were theirs in the years to come.

Conservatives had made the Bible their rallying cry. “Inerrancy” was the uniting point for all SBC conservatives. So Southern Baptists began to produce young people, young pastors and young professors who were serious about putting scripture first. That’s a good thing, right?

That would mean, of course, that those influenced by the conservative resurgence put…

Scripture above denomination.

Scripture above tradition.

Scripture above custom.

Scripture above culture and habit.

Scripture above “the way Southern Baptists have always done it.”

Scripture above Southern Baptist ways of justifying what Southern Baptists do.

Such an orientation is, as the song says, “bound to be some trouble in this town.”

Southern Baptists are now a denomination where conservative leaders are watching young pastors distance themselves from everything but the most lukewarm denominational loyalties. Gone are the days when Nashville (or the state convention office) determined the programs and priorities of every SBC church. Gone are the days when the local association, the state convention and the national denomination could talk to young pastors with authority and the expectation of being heeded. Gone are the days when younger pastors and would-be church planters were eager to be identified with the SBC.

Today men like John Piper, Mark Dever, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, C.J. Mahaney, Bill Hybels, Matt Chandler and Rick Warren are providing models for ministry that appeal to the next generation of Southern Baptist pastors. These men and others wield enormous influence by their example and their determination to communicate with and develop young leaders. Given the choice of a denominational meeting or a trip to a conference sponsored by one of these men, 9Marks, or the Acts 29 Network, it’s not much of a choice for many young pastors.

Unable to face up to the loss of influence, some elements in the denomination have decided to take the once well-used lower road of “denominational loyalty.” Who are the “real Baptists?” How will we know them? Who will “walk the aisle” and announce they are 100% on board with the SBC?

A negative agenda has rapidly emerged on the part of some SBC leaders:

-Portray SBC Calvinists as hyper-calvinists, baby baptizers, anti-missionary and anti-evangelism.
-Make the use of the public invitation the test case for being evangelistic (and insist it’s a Biblical practice, not a recent historical addition.)
-Oppose efforts to report church membership statistics with integrity as an attack on church government.
-Oppose the elder model of church government in a Baptist Church.
-Emphasize “Baptist Identity,” a code phrase for rejecting almost all cooperation with non-Southern Baptists.
-Insist on conformity on secondary and non-Biblical issues as a requirement for ministry and leadership.
-Cast suspicion on the character and motives of some of the leaders listed above.
-Blame and cast suspicion on the use of new technologies which are the means these new networks of influence have connected to their audience.
-Speak about Baptist methodology and traditions as a unified, identifying whole from which no “real Baptist” would ever depart (despite all evidence that this has never been true and is less true now than ever.)

How strange is it to see Baptist Press almost completely ignore the fact that Mark Driscoll has set the pace for evangelism and church planting in an area where Baptists have never succeeded in favor of running an article casting doubt on Driscoll’s character because of old criticisms from non-Southern Baptists like John Macarthur and Barney Fife-esque discernment police bloggers?

Is this the denomination of Bold Mission Thrust? Don’t pay attention to a guy who once said “crap” in a sermon, even if he has planted the largest evangelical church movement in the Pacific northwest?

How strange is it that younger SBCers will go all over the country to multiple conferences about the Gospel, serious theology, healthy churches and church planting, but will avoid denominational meetings whenever possible?

How strange is it that a 49 year old pastor feels like the youngest person at the SBC’s ever-shrinking national meeting?

Why is it a collective of mostly Calvinists who are having Advance ‘09? A Conference on the Resurgence of the local church? Why doesn’t the SBC do this kind of national meeting?

Why does Baptist Press promote political and culture war causes more than our own Southern Baptist missions efforts? When did political partisanship become an acceptable journalistic priority from the voice of our denomination? When did the SBC go on record saying America is a Christian nation and we must vote to insure it remains so? Where in our statement of faith is this advocated?

Brave and reasonable voices like Tom Ascol, Ed Stetzer and Danny Akin have pointed to a model of missional church planting and theological integrity within broad evangelical ecumenism and Kingdom priorities as the way forward for Baptists. The Great Commission Resurgence team is talking evangelism, while the Baptist Identity team is talking purification and survival.

The statistical realities of the coming evangelical collapse will likely cut deep into Southern Baptist ranks. The SBC is the “grayest” of the major denominations, with the largest percentage of members over the age of 70. Funding for SBC missions has become precarious and unpredictable. Loyalty to the denomination’s missions programs still holds a chain of cooperation together, but more and more churches are asking why they are funding second and third level denominational work in their states and associations. Younger pastors increasingly need a reason to send money to denominational headquarters rather than to a church plant with their own people or to missions projects and ministries they personally support. Southern Baptists have always excelled at building the trust on which cooperative missions grew and flourished, but something is shifting among younger leaders. The call to support the Cooperative Program and cooperative missions is being met with a more skeptical attitude, not because of a lack of interest in missions and evangelism, but because of a loss of confidence in the denomination.

All sides agree that Southern Baptist baptisms are declining. Theories of why aren’t hard to come by. Past SBC President Frank Page said openly that the next quarter century would see thousands of churches fold because of aging congregations and declining conversions. Recent numbers indicate that with a decline in ethnic baptisms, the SBC is barely holding the line in growth and is below the line in conversion evangelism. The unthinkable for many Baptists is here: The SBC is in decline. We are no longer the denomination we thought we were. Mormons and the non-religious are rapidly outpacing us.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who can feel the uncertainty among SBC churches and people. There is an unease about who we are, where we are and what we are supposed to do. The signals are no longer clear and the terrain is no longer familiar. Dr. Chuck Kelley at New Orleans Seminary outlined one response: return to the map of the 1960s and 70s. Reinstitute church based programs and return to the methodology of our past golden era. In other words, when lost, drive back to where you weren’t lost. The problem is, we will never find that exit or that highway again. Change has made renewal by retreat impossible.

The SBC is the largest, most evangelistic and most mission minded of America’s evangelical denominations. It has fought a long and costly battle to affirm the Bible as its authority and to place Biblically committed leaders at the helm.

The SBC knows what Christianity is about: missions, evangelism and church planting by committed, baptized disciples of Jesus. It has more resources and equipment than any other denomination to carry out the Great Commission.

At moments, the SBC shows incredible promise, such as Ken Hemphill’s teaching on the Kingdom of God or Ed Stetzer’s drumbeat for new, missional churches aimed at conversion evangelism . Thom Ranier’s vision of simple and essential church is outstanding. At other times the SBC looks and sounds like a denomination flirting with “Death by Nostalgia.”

What is “Death by Nostalgia?” It is the failure to recognize that what succeeded for us before didn’t succeed because we were always right or were always better than others. In the postwar South, the SBC’s brand of revivalism and evangelism worked. Our Sunday schools were the best. Our preaching was on target. Even our heritage of fundamentalism and racism didn’t stop our growth.

But today, the world and the culture in America have changed dramatically. Southern Baptists are viewed negatively by younger Americans. Rick Warren changed the game of evangelical church growth. Mark Driscoll and others have changed it again. A new generation of leaders wants unity around the Gospel, not around the denomination. They want the structures we support to SERVE the church, not dictate to the church. They want to embrace technology and allow for diversity. They want a Great Commission denomination, and not a denomination constantly defining loyalty.

“Death by Nostalgia” is wishing the world was like it was in the 1970’s and we could just assume that we were right. The 1970’s came and went, conservatives ascended and now they have a generation of Bible loving, Gospel centered, missional minded young leaders making up their minds if they are going to stick with the SBC or cast their loyalties elsewhere.

I’m just one Southern Baptist. As long as Baptists are majoring on the Gospel, I’m on the bus. But we have to admit that we have been arrogant and we have neglected crucial aspects of our denominational strength. All was not won for future generations when the conservatives took control. We’ve become functionally unevangelistic in many places because our past methodologies- door to door visitation, revivals, church based ministries- no longer are effective. There are many churches where moralism and legalism are heard and the Gospel is obscured. We have insisted on matters of unity that aren’t matters of unity. We’ve pushed our confession to its limits. We’ve treated younger leaders like they had to pass a loyalty test to get in the door. Many of our churches have looked the other way while change happened all around them and then blamed the pastor for the fact the church wasn’t growing.

After such a great victory as the conservative resurgence, and with some great unity on so many issues, why is the SBC on the verge of losing thousands of young leaders and younger prospective leaders and members?

As most of my readers know, my essay “The Great Evangelical Collapse” was discussed and responded to all over America, and even England and Africa. I noted today one omission. One denomination has, in its media, ignored it completely- which is perfectly fine with me, of course, but I do find it a bit odd.

Do I even need to tell you which one?

Southern Baptists are at a Crossroads generation. It’s a time for wisdom, repentance, loving the Gospel and uniting around the mission. God moves and time moves. We must take his hand, and humbly become a Great Commission network for the 21st century.